What Good is the Dawn?
by geeves
Summary: Cold and dark is the night that hides in the deepest recesses of the hunter's soul...


Another one-shot ficlet written for the LJ prompt table I'm working on. This is for prompt 29 - Sun. As always I don't own the car, the boys or anything to do with the Supernatural tv show and it's franchise. Just taking the Winchesters for a little joyride through my imagination. Title comes from the Beach Boys song 'Warmth of the Sun' which I also do not own.

Trying to get back in the swing of things after self publishing my first novel. Already hard at work on my second and am hoping that writing a little fanfic might be just what I need :) You'll have to let me know if it turned out ok. Reviews are love! Feel free to leave one.

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**What Good is the Dawn?**

When you're a hunter it's impossible to escape the night. Working a job or in between some, it really makes no difference. The nightmare never ends. You're haunted by the dark and cold of the outdoors from sunset to sunrise. Hunting or hunted, the lines get blurred so that you just don't know which one you are anymore. The only thing that seems to be any kind of clear is that there are things out there most folk would prefer to believe don't exist. Sometimes you feel like you might be one of them. You're life is filled with wet and uncomfortable. Feet sloshing through the gutters, spelunking through the sewers and trying not to get lost in the deep of the woods. It's always the middle of the night with nothing but the light of the moon and stars to see by. Their eerie twinkling as cool as the velvet sky around them, so cold they've turned blue and your skin along with them.

There isn't a time you're not running and hiding, loosing yourself to a hopeless underworld of death and despair. Loss becomes second nature: no longer a surprise but an expectation. One by one the people you hold dearest succumb to it until you're falling from grace with the weight of the guilt. There's no telling which end is up or where the line needs to be drawn anymore. Lines have already been crossed and redrawn so many times that nothing is familiar enough to be called 'right' or 'wrong'. Boundaries have no meaning. Closing your eyes to the pain doesn't help like it used to either. Not when what's behind closed lids has become darker than anything you've ever come across on the job.

Knowing this darkness intimately in and of itself as it settles in, making a home from which it can never be purged, is more terrifying than any demon could ever be. Demonic possession can be exorcised but you can't just reach in and rip something out that's taken root and become a part of your soul.

Eyes closed, overwhelmed with all the horrible things that are your world, you become aware of a tingle dancing just under your skin. Waking comes not with a start but with the slow hum caused by blood feeding muscle tissue until it reaches your mind helping you to become conscious of the outside world. There's something touching your exposed skin, something so foreign that you'd somehow forgotten it even existed. It's comforting and terrifying all at once and you're really not sure how to react so you just lie there and let yourself feel.

It takes a moment to grasp that the backs of your eyelids have gone from black to red, a moment more to get that the change came from some sort of bright light and not because of pain or injury. Another moment still to truly understand that the light is the cause of the tingling that has now covered your body has brought warmth with it. Such a simple thing and yet it's enough to banish the cold that you'd been so sure had become your constant companion. When you finally crack open an eye it's not with the usual disgruntled groan. You're not pulling a pillow over your head to block out the bleak reality that consciousness brings. You're not afraid of the reality that constantly threatens to consume you. Instead you stretch, long and lazy, and sigh contentedly. If your brother were awake he'd make a crack about fat housecats purring in a pool of sunlight.

Exhausted after a long night's work you both forgot to close the heavy motel room drapes before falling into your respective beds after the job was done. Hours earlier it hadn't made much difference, not when it had still been dark. Now the room is flooded with sunlight so bright it's blinding. A welcome change to the darkness that always lies in wait for the moment your guard is down, the monster within that comes out to torture and maim within every time you close your eyes. You can't escape your life but for a just moment you've been granted a reprieve. There's a time for everything, after all, and this is your time to lay back and remember that the simple things are what make it all worth doing.


End file.
